


Altered

by blythechild



Category: V for Vendetta (2005)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Ending, Character Death Fix, F/M, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an alternate view of November 5th. Evey gets an opportunity to tell V everything that she feels, but it still doesn't alter him from his course. How can he have his revolution and keep a promise to return to Evey?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Altered

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of bodyswap fic mixed with a mentalfic. 
> 
> This is fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal entertainment.

“So, now you know everything, as you should.” He spoke very softly and it was almost lost to the wind that buffeted them on the rooftop. “No more tricks, no more lies: only truth.”

He leaned his weight casually over his bent knee affecting a disconnected pose as he looked over the parapet to the city below. He was radiating calm, nonchalantly taking her in through his sidelong glance. She knew that he was waiting: waiting for her response. Would she help him or walk away? She knew that behind his mask he was a riot of conflicts, and she also knew with certainty that it was taking every ounce of him to remain still in this moment. Waiting. But, she did not know what to say or do with what he had given her; neither the _right_ response nor the one that he was hoping for.

She had never felt so alone in her whole, brief life.

Coming back to fulfill her promise had been something that she had both dreaded and anticipated. Consequently, she had put it off until it was almost too late. How could they settle everything in one night? Not even a whole night, just mere hours before the 5th. She came to him, her heart in her throat trying to remember to hate him, and they had danced, and they had gone to the tunnels and seen his plans made manifest in roses and gelignite. Then, she was unable to breathe. The Gallery had already seemed claustrophobic and, with his plans and his timetable revealed, the crushing awareness that she had run out of time closed in on her like a pack of winter wolves. Hunting her down, mercilessly cutting off her avenues of escape until she was alone and cornered by fate on that windy rooftop.

At her side, he sighed almost imperceptibly, irritated with the waiting, perhaps feeling the creeping inevitability of time slipping away also. This small sign made her realize with startling clarity how connected she still was to him. She left him months before in hatred – there was no other word for it – and returned preparing to continue with the theme. But she had nearly melted into his arms while they danced, her traitorous heart sped at the sound of his voice, and a black mood of disappointment and self-delusion settled over her as saw the truth about herself. She didn’t hate him at all. Had she ever? Even after her ‘confinement’? Now the black mood was joined but the sick churning of her stomach and a whisper of anxiety as a nameless voice within her said that she had left it all too late to be fixed. Her insides suddenly seized up painfully as if some fast-acting toxin was flowing through her pushed on by her frantic heartbeat. She started gasping for air and tried hard to relax her grip on the brim of his hat before it warped irreversibly.

“Evey.” V whispered her name apparently unaware of her impending panic attack.

She continued to stare straight ahead out over London towards the still-unmolested Parliament buildings. She struggled to organize her thoughts – tried to make them convincing and succinct – but the language eluded her. He needed an answer. She needed to tell him everything inside her head. Time waited for neither of them. She wrestled again, over and over, silently as the minutes ticked by.

“Don’t -” She breathed finally. It was all that she could push out of her paralyzed lips.

“Don’t.” He mused flatly. “Don’t _what_?”

She turned to face him sharply. Her eyes stung and she told herself that it was just the force of the November wind. Both hands now gripped the brim of his hat trying to pull fugitive strength from it. Her mind spun, her breathing came shallow and fast, her mouth opened and shut as she felt her voice dry up in her throat.

“ _Don’t!_ ” She blurted again and grabbed for his cloak as if she could keep him there by force.

“Evey, what is it?” His voice held a note of disappointment. “Don’t what? Don’t blow up Parliament, you mean? You _know_ that I cannot agree to that…”

“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “No, that’s not what I meant. Of course you can’t… Of course you won’t…”

Her body sagged as if all of the air had been let out of her. Her eyes dropped from his as she numbly held out his hat to him. He took it from her, anchored it firmly to his head and then cocked his mask at her, appraising her mood. She still held onto a fistful of his cloak.

“Evey,” He paused as if worried about her physically “Will you do it?”

Evey nodded dumbly without meeting his gaze. She did not move a muscle.

“You’ll send the train off at midnight if I don’t return like I showed you?” He asked as if he thought she was just telling him what he wanted to hear.

She nodded again without looking up. “Sure.”

V grabbed her shoulders lightly and shook her a little. Her head bobbled around like it was on a string and her body seemed to collapse under his touch, but her eyes refused to meet his.

“Evey, _what_ is it?!”

When he did not get a response, a gloved hand held her chin and lifted her gaze to his. Her eyes were dead but small wet tracks leading from them down her face gave her up.

“Evey! Please tell me what’s going on in that head of yours!”

She sniffled once and tried to take a deep breath to fortify herself, but it had the opposite effect. Without warning her face crumbled and her mouth opened into a wide, sobbing frown.

“You’re not coming back.” It was almost too soft to hear as she was using all of her air up in gasps. “I – I can’t… don’t… I d-don’t want that.”

She was hyperventilating now, shivering under his grip. Though it should not have been possible, she suddenly found it easier to talk and she began to babble incoherently hoping that a third of it reached him.

“Didn’t think this w-would happen…wanted you dead, w-wanted you to rot down t-there…can’t see…c-can’t imagine it…anything without y-you…all so pointless…thought that I g-gave up everything in p-prison, b-but I still had s-something to lose…now I have to l-live w-with that…”

V captured her face in both hands and stooped to look directly at her. “Evey!”

“You think that you c-cured my fear?! You think that setting the world on f-fire and leaving me here to deal with the burning doesn’t _terrify_ me?!” She started punctuating her thoughts with blows to his chest that had no affect him at all. “What makes you think that I can _do_ this? What makes you think that I _want_ to?! _Whydidyouteachmetohopeandthentakeawayallofmychoices?! Whydidyouwantmetosurviveonlytodestroymenow?! Youshouldhavekilledme… youshouldhavekilledmeinthatcell…_ ”

“No, Evey, no!” His hands were in her hair, massaging through the curls that had grown in since she had left him. He pulled her face into his shoulder and held her there. “Never, Evey! God, no…”

“You’re leaving me alone. In Hell.” She sobbed into his cloak.

“I don’t belong here.” V’s growl was almost resentful. “I was never meant to _be_ here in the first place!”

“But you _are_ here! And you changed _everything_!” Evey pulled her head back and looked up at him with the same beseeching, pained eyes that she wore when he released her. “Don’t. Leave. Now.”

Evey struggled frantically under his grip and managed to wriggle enough to stretch up towards his mask. She grabbed fistfuls of his cloak again to hold her in place and strained to kiss the cold, hard lips of his mask through the tears and desperation and pain. He froze under her but she would not relent, instead forcing her body closer as if it put meaning behind her statement. V’s hands slowly slid to her waist and rested there, not pushing her away but not holding her to him either. He made no other concession to her kiss. A horrible wave of doubt washed over her and she slowly disengaged from him feeling like a fool.

“Sorry.” She whispered. “Nothing here for you to come back to, I guess…”

“Evey -” His voice was strangely thick.

She waved off his impending denial. She did not want his lies, even if they were kind ones. Wading waist-high in her new defeat, she realized that she had wasted precious time – time that he did not have to spare. Not wanting to hold him there through guilt, she screwed up the remnants of her courage and pride and gave him the nudge that he needed to complete his destiny. 

“I panicked. Sorry. I’ll do as you ask – I’ll send the train off – I give you my word, V. I’ll do it. For you.” She backed away from him and his hands slipped off her like water. She tried not to notice that it sliced her wide open. “You should go, there’s not much time left.”

V stood still before her for a long moment. He seemed to have deflated slightly and it was killing her that he now lingered out of remorse for the guilt that she had laid at his feet. The ending to his story was too important – it had been unforgivable to try and alter that with her despair. After all, he had always told her that he was an idea, a passion, a cause: it would not make any sense for him to suddenly become warm and human, willing to throw a life’s work to the wind for the affection of a scared girl. A foolish impulse! 

Evey fixed the most compassionate, convincing smile that she could manage to her face. She walked hesitantly toward him and squeezed encouragement into his arm as she lied.

“Go. I’m gonna be fine. Don’t let all of this be for nothing, V…” Evey pushed him towards the roof access. It was like an ant pushing a bulldozer. “I just need a moment here and then I’ll follow. I’ll be waiting on the train platform at midnight. I’ll do my part.”

V’s body turned towards the lift access but his unchanging mask never looked away from her. Evey gave him another nudge and smiled, but his hands grabbed her and pulled her into him with an awkward crash. His fingers dug into her upper arms and he pressed her so tightly to him that she found it hard to catch her breath crushed into his clothing. Breath whistled out through the mask and caressed over her ear and down her neck.

“I’ll do all that I can to come back to you, Evey.” His voice was hoarse as if he had not used it in years, and solemn. 

Then he released her, turned in a swirl of cloak and was gone faster than she could think.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was done.

Midnight pealed from Big Ben and she had sent the train on its way – not even the appearance of Inspector Finch had stopped her. V would have been proud to see her resolve, she thought sadly as his absence once again tore at her. He would have come back if he was able; the fact that he had not meant that he was clearly _unable_. Her heart throbbed at the thought and she labored to push it aside, at least until she was alone. She would not even allow herself to think the word that would make her pain real and inescapable: _dead_. 

Finch needed convincing. He had agreed with V’s plan in theory but when she took him to the roof to see Parliament burn he started to bristle against the level of destruction that V’s commitment to civil disobedience entailed. It took some time but he was a good man who had lost, just like so many others – just like V – and Evey beat back his ingrained opposition with patience and the unassailable logic that V had taught her. Whatever happened next was a mystery to both of them, but Evey felt certain as she explained the exit route through the tunnels to him, that she would see Eric Finch again. Perhaps soon. 

Alone, finally, Evey watched the flames flare and dim in the distance. Searchlights strafed the night, emergency flares pulsed in steady flashes as the shifting winds carried secrets of smoke and sound to her from the conflagration site miles away. Sometime around 4a.m. a soft rain began to fall deadening the remaining flames that the fire brigades could not put out. Though she was stiff, cold and soaked to the skin, Evey remained rooted to her vantage point on the rooftop. It was as if time no longer held sway over her and she did not feel it passing. 

Slowly the horizon’s edge glowed and started to pinken. A thick swell of charcoal smoke hovered over London’s early dawn, solidified by the wet into a physical entity that seemed reluctant to move along with the shifting winds. Evey smiled without humor thinking that _that cloud_ was just like her: a miserable witness – an unintended by-product of fate – unable to move on. She reached up and touched her face – her first movement in hours – and wondered why her face was wet when the rain had stopped an hour before.

The wind changed again and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She twisted to look behind her out of instinct, not real interest, and peered into the gloom of the receding night. Even though it was early morning, the rooftop remained in shadow. Her eyes blurred having focused on bright flames for most of the night, fighting the phantom shadows and motes that now flashed across her vision. She did not see anything at first, but the feral tension in the air that signaled a presence persisted. She squinted harder, narrowing her view to a particularly dark corner near one of the walls that housed the lift entrance. She blinked and focused again. There was movement there, she was sure of it. More feral instincts took over telling her to choose: freeze or flight. Since she was already standing still her body went with that impulse and she waited.

It seemed like hours before the shadows flickered again. The tension in her frozen half-turned body began to ache and she tried to force her muscles to relax a little. Something moved by that wall next to the lift – indistinct, the quality of shadow only slightly different from the night around it. She strained her eyes until they stung, and then, as if the edges of night had parted, the silhouette became obvious.

A man: tall, sturdy – his obsidian edges phasing in and out of focus though he did not move at all. No details were visible but Evey saw no outline of clothing or shoes, and he did not seem affected by the environment that he was in. It was if he was an alien standing on the shore of some distant land that just happened to be on the far end of the rooftop. Evey suddenly became frightened. Nothing about this vision was familiar; nothing about it seemed _right_.

“W-what are you?” She whispered, though she had meant to ask ‘who’, not ‘what’.

The silhouette reacted suddenly, twitching his head to the side and turning slightly in her direction as if he had not noticed her there. The rest of him remained preternaturally still as the phasing around the edges of him increased in intensity. Evey caught a whiff of something burning – not the Parliament buildings behind her – it seemed like the figure was _burning_. In her mind, Evey transformed the bizarre phasing into waves of black flames: he was being consumed while standing absolutely still.

Before Evey had a chance to panic, the curtain of night rearranged itself taking the ghostly figure with it. The smell was suddenly gone, the changing nature of the shadows on the rooftop settled, the strange feral fear disappeared – she was alone on the rooftop once again. She breathed in and out to steady herself and peered into the darkness, willing understanding to come to her. She could not make the pieces fit together. The sensation had been too real to be an illusion: the smell, the fear, the crackle of ozone that she felt as his edges passed in and out of focus.

She was absolutely terrified. And exhausted. She wanted answers and certainty, and these desires went beyond the mysterious silhouette. Perhaps she was inventing drama in order to manufacture a will to carry on. The past year had been one long terrifying mystery and perhaps she could only survive V’s loss if she found a new mystery to cling to. A crazed delusion might give her purpose and prevent her from ripping apart at the seams. Like ancient priests predicting future actions on water signs and animal bones, she was investing random occurrences with power that they did not possess. It was madness, but would it save her?

In her thoughts, she turned back to face the ruins of Parliament. Her body ached and her eyes stung, and if she did not move soon she felt certain that she would turn to stone. Quick as a serpent’s strike, the thought _V is dead_ hissed across her consciousness, and she felt her exhaustion begin to crumble into despair. Her legs began to buckle, her eyes blurred as she patiently waited for the pain to knock her down. Instead, the hairs on the back of her neck rose again to the sound of ozone cracking and distant footfalls behind her.

A blast of wind – this time warm – shook her, coming from the wrong direction of the roof. Her knees gave way yet she remained standing, surrounded by the gust of warmth that seemed to hold her and move through her at the same time. She felt something shift and move _inside her_. Something was making room for itself, but still she could not shake the feeling of sturdy arms holding her: holding her from the inside. The warmth felt good. Even the feeling of possession did not panic her, so convincing was the sensation of being held and protected. She waited for fear, for unconsciousness, or a complete detachment from reality; whatever happened first.

_Hmmmmmmmm._

The sound was satisfied and content. It came from inside her head but it was not her. Apprehension nipped at the buttressing warmth that was cocooning her body.

“Dammit, Evey!” She grumbled. “Full-blown madness? _This_ is your solution?”

The warm security that wrapped around her squeezed tighter as a new blast of heat flared throughout her body. The sensation was followed by another satisfied purr. A baritone purr. She tried to support herself and found that the warmth moved with her – still there, still reassuring – but in conjunction with her impulse as if it was a part of her. It felt wonderful; like she was encased in a fortified, energized new skin. She raised her hand to look at it. It seemed the same as before but she felt like she could crush boulders with it now. The warmth followed her every movement and she felt it pulse outward and then circle back into like blood being moved through her body.

“Well, if this is what insanity is, I should’ve signed on a long time ago…” She murmured to herself.

 _Not quite the thanks that I was hoping for._

The baritone weaved between amusement and irritation. There was no mistaking the tone now as it rumbled through her own chest taking on notes of her own voice in the process. On instinct she began to melt and she felt something shift forward, with interest, taking note of the reaction. Memories flashed across her mind unbidden: dancing, movie night, eggs and toast, a gloved hand holding her head underwater, a cold desperate kiss on a rooftop…

 _I’m sorry that it took me so long to return to you._ The inner voice said finally.

“Oh god…” Evey breathed.

_It was…difficult. Like being in water and fire at once. Voices, nightmares, sudden explosions – but I was given just one wish. I did not know that it would work out like…this._

“You’re real?” She asked aloud. “Not an illusion?”

 _As real as you, and ONLY as real as you, if you get my meaning. I can travel with you and still be…me._

“For how long?”

She had so many questions but in that moment she was lost in his voice, how it moved through her, how she felt him settle back within her like he was crossing his legs and contemplating a cup of tea, and how she could almost _feel_ him thinking. She decided to forego the standard retorts of ‘this isn’t possible’ and ‘how did this happen’; neither of them seemed very important to her. She only wanted to know how long she could savor this sensation. When would this gift, this balm for her fractured heart expire? When would she have to learn to go on alone again?

 _As long as you wish, Evey._ His voice was faint as if uncertain of his value to her. _Shall I stay? Two essences in one frame…it’s probably not what you expected when I said that I would return to you. It might be…messy._

Evey paused and thought about the possibility of being linked so intimately for the rest of her days. It would entail a new form of hiding, a new form of secrecy, different than being sealed within the Gallery. The Shadow Gallery would now be housed within her, as well as its tenant. She would be protecting him with her own body and consciousness. There would be no secret location to reveal because if she told anyone they would assume that she was mad. But it meant something else too: committing to _him_ completely and for good. There could be no secrets between them anymore and he would always be there, never ‘switched off’. She would never be able to be intimate with anyone else. She would have to give up the notion of an outside, physical relationship because her new ‘duality’ would make any relationship configuration impossible. She already knew enough about him to know that he would not ‘share’ her in that way.

 _Mmmmmm._ His voice mused inside her head, thinking through the consequences along with her. _You don’t have to make this decision now, E-_

“Stay.” She interrupted him. 

_Are you certain?_ He asked after a long moment.

“Yes. I want you with me, and if this is the only way left for us then I’ll take it. Gladly.”

Evey stared out over the rooftop at London, radiating her own warmth now. Feeling the solidness of her decision at the center of herself, the city took on a new perspective: one of hope and reconstruction and purpose. Her fear was gone and all that remained was formidable amount of work yet to be done, and the assurance that she _now_ possessed the tools to complete that work. The thrill of purpose was almost as intoxicating as the preternatural warmth within her. She felt alive and complete.

The voice within remained silent and still for some time until the rising sun had transformed the charcoal night into milky day. Evey felt him move forward slowly as warmth wrapped around her arms and shoulders.

_Evey._

“Yes, V?”

_May I try something?_

“Of course.”

Everything was still for a moment and then the warmth shifted. A tickling sliver of heat traced the edge of her cheekbone and trailed down her face to rest at the base of her chin. Evey breathed in suddenly, taken off guard by a sensation that she could not see. Then her mouth flooded with warmth. Her lips and tongue tingled feeling alight and electrified. The warmth trickled down her throat and spread out sinews of heat and excitement across the pathways of her lungs and through the veins in her heart. Her heartbeat quickened and her stomach felt like it was freefalling: just as if he was actually with her. He lingered, stretching fingers of heat along her face and her throat, and then the warmth slowly ceased curling back up in the center of her again.

 _You have no idea how much I wanted to do that before I left you here, Evey. I know that its not the same, but I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did._ His voice hummed with satisfaction, almost an octave lower than normal.

 _Yes, I did. So much better than the cold mask._ She said, no longer speaking aloud. They would have to learn to communicate internally as well as externally. Some things just could not be said aloud. _You can try that again whenever you like, V._

She was not sure if the ensuing vibration that she felt was his excitement or laughter, but the feeling set off the butterflies in her stomach once again and brought on laughter of her own. The warmth refocused around her arms and shoulders again: he was holding her and staring out at London through her eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself – it was the only way that she could return his embrace – and smiled.

 _I’m glad that we have this chance._ She thought.

Heat flared over every inch of her body in response, armoring her against the wet and the cold and the charcoal stink of the city as it limped its way through the first few hours of its rebirth.


End file.
